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SEATTLE — The tragedy and disaster of the Blue Jays’ bullpen meltdown Monday resulted in more than a punch-in-the-gut loss.

It ended David Purcey’s career as a Blue Jay.

On Tuesday, the Jays designated Purcey for assignment and as general Alex Anthopoulos opined, there will be lots of interest in a left-handed reliever who has just more than one year of service time.

“I expect to be able to trade him,” Anthopoulos said Tuesday prior to the rematch against the Mariners. “We have 10 days to do something with him and I’ve had enough interest from clubs (in the past) that I believe that we’ll be able to move him before that 10 days expires.”

Purcey, however, should not be viewed as a scapegoat, a sacrificial lamb, for what happened Monday.

His outing was strictly the final straw from the Blue Jays’ point of view.

The lone reason he made the team coming out of spring training was that he was out of options, had shown some promise the previous year, and the hope that the inconsistency that he showed again in the spring would pass.

But it didn’t and Purcey became a liability.

He was not a reliever that manager John Farrell could trust in a dicey situation. Monday he showed that he couldn’t be trusted to protect a 7-1 lead and it was his shabby performance — he filled the bases against one out — that started the ball rolling downhill in the eighth.

So, when you can’t trust him with a six-run lead and you have better performers in the minor leagues, what’s the point?

“David has been with us for awhile and the last few outings he hadn’t been able to command the strike zone and throw strikes,” Anthopoulos said. “Right now we have a lot of depth in the bullpen and we have guys in the minor leagues, one of them being (Casey) Janssen that came back up.”

A former No. 1 pick by the Jays in 2004, Purcey was inconsistent as a starter and flamed out in that capacity in both 2008 and 2009 when called up to the Jays. In 2008 he was 3-6 with a 5.54 ERA in 12 starts while the next year he was 1-3 in nine starts with a 6.19 ERA.

Last spring, the Jays decided to switch him to a reliever and make him a two-pitch pitcher — fastball and slider. In 33 appearances with the Jays he was 1-1 with a 3.71 ERA. It gave reason for optimism.

But this spring he seemed to take a step back and was inconsistent in finding the strike zone.

On Tuesday, the Jays showed they simply ran out of patience.

“It’s one of those things that you try to buy yourself as much time as you can and hold on to him as long as you can but we got to the point with him being out of options that we had to make a move, had to do what was best for the team,” Anthopoulos said.

THE GREAT DEBATE

It is controversial and it is open for debate.

It is one of the tenets in baseball — that you never put the potential winning run on base with an intentional walk.

At best, it is a major roll of the dice. On Monday, in the ninth inning of the Jays’ game against the Mariners, manager John Farrell rolled those bones.

The eighth-inning, walkathon disaster aside, the Jays entered the ninth clinging to a 7-6 lead. Then destiny knocked for the Mariners and as they say, stuff happened.

The ninth boiled down to two out, a runner on third and Ichiro Suzuki, perhaps the best pure hitter of the past 10 seasons, coming to the plate.

What to do?

Shawn Camp’s first two pitches were well out of the strike zone setting up a hitter’s count of 2-0. That was it for Farrell. He elected to walk Suzuki intentionally and put the game on the line against weak-hitting Luis Rodriguez, who came to the plate 1-for-11 on the season.

With two strikes, Rodriguez fouled off five consecutive pitches before lining a shot to right-centre that drove in the winning runs.

On Tuesday, prior to the second game of the series, Farrell hadn’t changed his mind and didn’t go to sleep second-guessing himself either.

“No, not at all,” he said. “We took the approach of pitching to him (Suzuki) initially, until we got behind 2-0. Then in my mind it became very clear what to do. That’s not to take anything away from Luis Rodriguez but with Ichiro, his track record speaks for itself.

“Where we were in our bullpen, it felt like we needed to get it done in that moment.”